The CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY XI: Morphology of high-redshift field galaxies from high-resolution ground-based imaging

The 143 galaxies with secure redshifts (median z = 0.62) from the 1415+52 field of the Canada-France Redshift Survey have been imaged at CFHT with median seeing of 0.67 arcseconds. Structural parameters have been derived by fitting multi-component models, and the results confirm two phenomena seen in a smaller sample of galaxies imaged with HST. First, 11% of the galaxies lie off the normal locus of colour vs. bulge fraction. This class of objects ("blue-nucleated galaxies" or BNGs) was first identified using HST observations (Schade et al. 1995, Ap J, 451, L1), where it was shown that they are associated with peculiar or asymmetric structures and mergers/interactions. The observed frequency of BNGs in this sample is 14% for 0.5 < z < 1.2 and 6% at 0.2 < z < 0.5, but the true frequency is likely to be a factor ~2 higher after corrections are made for the effect of asymmetric/peculiar structures. Second, galaxy disks at 0.5 < z < 1.1 are found to have a mean rest-frame, inclination-corrected, central surface brightness of $\mu_{AB}(B)=19.8 \pm 0.1$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$, about 1.6 mag brighter than the Freeman (1970) value. At low redshift, the mean surface brightness is consistent with the Freeman value. These results are consistent with the HST observations. With larger numbers of galaxies and therefore more statistical weight, they demonstrate the capabilities, and limits, of ground-based work in the study of galaxy morphology at high redshift.